Jordy Yager

Last year, George Davis was struggling to make ends meet. The 47-year-old was working as much as possible as a private home care attendant, landscaper and maintenance man. But the work wasn’t steady, and he didn’t always get his paychecks on time. “The money wasn’t what I needed to sustain my rent or food costs,” […]

This month Charlottesville will move one step closer to eliminating homelessness as a coalition of service providers begins to house at least 33 of the most critically homeless people in the area. The initiative is being funded in part by $255,000 from the city and has three main components that complement a bevy of new […]

I find Floyd sitting with his 26-year-old son, Robert, under a tree near the intersection of Hydraulic Road and the 250 Bypass. He’s wearing a dark blue Earlysville Fire Station sweatshirt, but Floyd’s not a firefighter. He’s been homeless and panhandling in the area for more than five years. You’ve probably seen him. He’s 60 […]

In May 2012, Barbara Fitch had no savings account, a battered credit score, and a lavish shoe buying habit. She had racked up hefty debt and was trapped in a high-rate loan for a used car, even though she was bringing in a steady paycheck as the catering sales manager at the Inn at Darden, […]

Charlottesville’s fight against unemployment has a new crusader in town. Seated in the city’s new Downtown Job Center, Cory Demchak can be found busily at work in his underground lair in the basement of the public library on Market Street. Demchak mans the just-opened one-stop shop for residents looking for a new job, a better […]

Charlottesville is holding its breath as the eight-story brick behemoth of an apartment building known as The Flats at West Village prepares to open in five weeks along West Main Street. City officials, business owners, and developers are worried that the 622-bedroom apartment building has not been leasing as quickly as owners predicted, causing some […]

Members of a large task force formed by the city to look into unequal rates of arrest and incarceration among black and white kids in Charlottesville are clamoring for more action. The outcry comes in the wake of a recently completed study presented to City Council by the same task force, which found that black […]

It’s 4pm on a Friday, and Matt Reeves hasn’t eaten lunch yet. But the salt-and-pepper-haired director of Montpelier’s archaeology department is bouncing off the walls of his rustic office on the southeast side of the 2,650 acre estate nestled in the rolling fields of Orange County. Reeves is ecstatic because his team of 11 full-time […]

The nearly 50 small businesses that call McIntire Plaza home have made their voices heard above the din of incessant construction that stretches from their front yard at the intersection of McIntire Road and Harris Street down to the U.S. 250 Bypass. Responding to steady complaints from commuters and customers, City Manager Maurice Jones met […]

It took two years to get Bob Dylan organized, but a small software company nestled in Nelson County has finally done it. Bluewall Media recently helped Dylan and his staff archive and digitalize more than 60 years worth of his iconic music, photographs, written documents, video, and film footage. In the years to come, Dylan […]

The General Assembly’s political dogfight over the state’s budget is threatening to neuter Charlottesville’s drug court. The Medicaid expansion stalemate in Richmond has left Charlottesville’s 16th Circuit Court without a designated judge to oversee the city’s drug court for the first time since it was created 16 years ago. “The longer it goes on, the […]

Anybody who’s inched a car past the exhaust-spewing dump trucks and giant yellow backhoes lining the intersection of McIntire Road and the U.S. 250 Bypass knows what a traffic headache it can be. But for the nearly 50 small businesses in McIntire Plaza, the enormous construction site in their front yard has worsened from headache […]

This story is part of our 2014 health issue, which also includes articles on mammography, rhabdomyolysis, and gluten intolerance. Helmet? Check. Shoulder pads? Check. Tiny biometric brain injury sensor? Check. You won’t see the quarter-sized computerized devices tucked behind their ears, but more than 100 local high school and college athletes are donning the sensors […]

Canned ravioli, instant cups of soup, and microwaveable chicken dinners are a fixture in the kitchens of people who can’t afford to buy food. They’re free from food banks and charity distribution programs, because they’re easy to prepare and don’t go bad. But they’re not the most nutritious meals, and their sugar content and preservatives […]

At 11 years old, Kate Tamarkin sat in a dark Laguna Beach, California theater, her mouth gaping, flabbergasted at the boisterous sounds produced by the singers in a performance of Amahl and the Night Visitors. “I had not ever heard opera before,” said Tamarkin, who 40 years later is now the director of the Charlottesville & […]

The several hundred migrant workers who flood Albemarle and surrounding counties every apple season have come and gone. But the community of nonprofit health care providers that supports them each season is already thinking about next year. The Blue Ridge Medical Center (BRMC), which provides medical care to more than 10,000 patients each year in […]

As a teenager, I couldn’t wait to get out of Charlottesville. I wanted to travel, to prove my independence, and to test myself against challenges my hometown just couldn’t provide. If I didn’t leave right after high school, I reasoned, I might not ever leave. And the last thing I wanted was to be a […]